As graduate students, we could relate to having a busy schedule and managing our energy levels throughout the day and challenging ourselves to balance accomplishing various goals without burning out. So, we decided to focus on energy tracking and tiredness prevention.

Brainstorming areas to focus on for the project

Rough framework for the idea to monitor and prevent tiredness

CONTEXTUAL INQUIRY:

Our team’s background research included:

Review of papers and articles on tiredness

Research on devices used for tiredness monitoring

10 user interviews

Participatory Design Exercise

RESEARCH FINDINGS

We organized the notes from the 10 user interviews we conducted using an affinity wall and also created an empathy map to better understand our user group - graduate students. Some of the major findings were:

When they were tired, they felt anxious, desperate, low and frustrated

Tiredness affected their ability to focus

Doing tasks that they did not enjoy made them tired.

They relaxed by taking breaks that included biking, walking, talking naps, exercising, talking to friends, spending time on social media

IDEATION

Sample Personas for our target users

Our empathy map guided the personas we created for our design. The different scenarios were based on the typical activities a graduate student would perform on a given day.

INITIAL APP DESIGN

We came up with some initial sketches that represented a typical use case for a user using the Sunny app.

A user would get a notification from the app if they failed to take a break within a specified time, say 50 minutes with suggestion for break based on their location and type of activity they are involved in.

At the end of the day, they would be able to reflect on the activities they did, their energy graph and the number of breaks they took / missed and how they felt.

OUTCOMES

We developed concept prototypes and presented our design solution at the end of the semester.

Our design concept and presentation was well received. Here is the feedback from our instructor:

"Overall, great work on a compelling, well integrated presentation. The live demo using the Estimotes/iBeacons was particularly useful as a better way to grab context and track ... I like the focus on micro breaks for renewal - it's a sharp, focused idea that aligns really well with Heath and Heath's idea of directing the rider."

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Engaging the user was a core challenge. So, we decided to keep the solution light and fun.

It is necessary to mindful of a user's privacy and the amount of effort required from their end when striving to influence behavior change.

As we worked on the project, we became more aware about the challenges in developing a measurement strategy that yields a fairly accurate tracking of intended measures and outcomes while balancing the amount of time and input required from the user.

We realized that it is key to keep questioning the validity of our approaches at every stage of the design process.

It is prudent to leverage proven behavior change frameworks when developing behavior change solutions. The Heath and Heath framework helped and guided us as we strived to build an approachable solution.